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2019: WE NEED A TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION Commission in the US now for the Adoption Programs that stole generations of children... Goldwater Institute's work to dismantle ICWA is another glaring attempt at cultural genocide.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Rosebud to welcome back adoptees

Tiwahe GlukinIpi (Bringing the family back to life)

By Brandon Ecoffey | LCT Editor

ROSEBUD, SD—Generations of Lakota people have been cast out in to the Native
Diaspora by state and federal policies designed to break down
traditional familial units.
The citizens of the Rosebud Sioux Nation, however, are working to mend
some of these relationships destroyed by government policy by welcoming
home tribal citizens who were once thought of as lost.
Since the inception of colonization in North America federal policy has
been designed to erase the cultural bonds that Native people have with
their communities occupying their ancestral lands. Early ideas on
dealing with the “Indian problem” consisted of outright extermination,
efforts to assimilate, and eventually to relocate whole nations, as well
as individual tribal citizens to urban areas.
The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 provided financial and professional
incentives to Native people willing to abandon their lives on the
reservation. After four years of the program the Bureau of Indian
Affairs reported that approximately 31,000 people had joined the
program, however, the full impact of Native people’s migration was that,
according to PBS, as many as 750,000 Native people left their
reservations to work in the cities.

Today many Native children find themselves living with non-Native
families and in state foster care facilities as a result of
hyper-aggressive efforts by state social service programs to seize
Native children. According to a 2011 report by National Public Radio
Native children make up 50% of those in South Dakota’s foster care
system despite only being 15% of the overall population. Of those Native
children in foster care 90% of them are living with non-Native
caretakers.
The
Rosebud Sioux Tribe will welcome home adoptees at the 139th Annual
Rosebud Fair, Rodeo and Contest Powwow, which runs August 28-30 at the
Rosebud Fair Grounds in Mission, South Dakota. Image from RST

The result of these policies is thousands upon thousands of Native
people living in the United States without a connection to their people
or nations. To help repatriate these citizens with their own
communities, at this year’s Rosebud Sioux Tribal Fair, a special ceremony will take place that will welcome home those who were sent off through adoption or in to foster care.
“The inspiration for the event was Sandy White Hawk,” said Marlies White
Hat of Sinte Gleska University’s Tiwahe GlukinIpi (Bringing the family
back to life) program, a program that specializes in juvenile mental
health.
According to White Hat, Ms. White Hawk was placed in to a foster home
in a small all white town. White Hawk would eventually find her roots
and would embark on an effort to help bring Native people who were taken
away back to their communities.
Once she approached representatives of the tribe word spread throughout a
network of tribal programs who were all supportive of the idea to host
an event to welcome these people home. White Hawk has also created the
First Nations Repatriation Institute whose mission is partly to “to
bring awareness and healing to Indian communities impacted by adoption
and foster care.” During the fair the tribe will have a ceremony during the pow-wow for
those coming home as well as family members of those who were adopted
out.
“Almost everyone I talked to mentioned that they knew someone or had a
relative who was taken in to foster care. There are some stories of a
black car pulling up and entering the home to take four children out. It
was bad,” said White Hat.
White Hat would add that all family members of people who were adopted out are invited to come.

For more information on the event please contact Sandy White Hawk at (651) 442-4872 or Marlies White Hat at (605) 856-8203.
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Indian Country is under attack. Native tribes and people are fighting hard for justice. There is need for legal assistance across Indian Country, and NARF is doing as much as we can. With your help, we have fought for 48 years and we continue to fight.

It is hard to understand the extent of the attacks on Indian Country. We are sending a short series of emails this month with a few examples of attacks that are happening across Indian Country and how we are standing firm for justice.

Today, we look at recent effort to undo laws put in place to protect Native American children and families. All children deserve to be raised by loving families and communities. In the 1970s, Congress realized that state agencies and courts were disproportionately removing American Indian and Alaska Native children from their families. Often these devastating removals were due to an inability or unwillingness to understand Native cultures, where family is defined broadly and raising children is a shared responsibility. To stop these destructive practices, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

After forty years, ICWA has proven to be largely successful and many states have passed their own ICWAs. This success, however, is now being challenged by large, well-financed opponents who are actively and aggressively seeking to undermine ICWA’s protections for Native children. We are seeing lawsuits across the United States that challenge ICWA’s protections. NARF is working with partners to defend the rights of Native children and families.

where were you adopted?

To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

Join!

National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network (NISCWN)

Membership Application Form

The Network is open to all Indigenous and Foster Care Survivors any time.

ADOPTION TRUTH

As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.” The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

This has happened to many, many Native children! We must protect ICWA and enforce it so that it stops! Even non-Native families that are not racist cannot provide a Native child with cultural knowledge and belonging. Only their tribes can do that. #ProudtoProtectICWAhttps://t.co/oA1e5kiK4k

A4: Twenty-one states filed an amicus brief in this case in support of #ICWA. These states, which are home to over 70 percent of tribal nations, know that ICWA helps them better serve Native children and families.#ProudtoProtectICWA

TWO WORLDS Book 1 (second edition)

Two Worlds anthology (Vol. 1)

“…sometimes shocking, often an emotional read…this book is for individuals interested in the culture and history of the Native American Indian, but also on the reading lists of universities offering ethnic/culture/Native studies.”

“Well-researched and obviously a subject close to the heart of the authors/compilers, I found the extent of what can only be described as ‘child-snatching’ from the Native Americans quite staggering. It’s not something I was aware of before…”

“The individual pieces are open and honest and give a good insight into the turmoil of dislocation from family and tribe… I think it does have value and a story to tell. I was affected by the stories I read, and amazed by the facts presented…. because it is saying something new, interesting and often astonishing.”

Did you know?

Good words

I agree with you on the caring of “orphans” – true orphans, not “paper orphans” as Kathryn Joyce describes in her book, The Child Catchers. The most important thing to remember, however, is that the orphan’s original identity and family connection and heritage must remain intact and available to him or her forever. This business of adoption – and I do mean the multi-billion-dollar, unregulated business of adoption – of wiping out the child’s original identity, falsifying birth records with the adopters’ names, altering facts such as place of birth, severing familial kinship, must stop … Immediately. And the outrageous injustices foisted upon adoptees and their families for the past 100 years must be addressed and righted. We are faced today with six to seven million people who were basically legally kidnapped, sold to the highest bidder, their identities falsified, and placed in a lifelong, imposed witness protection program for which there is no legal recourse. Then told by church officials, agency and government functionaries that they have no right to know who they are, to do genealogy or learn about important family medical history, or know the identity of or associate with blood relatives. This is how the Judeo-Christian society has interpreted “caring for orphans”, for it’s own selfish interests and greed. Starting with Georgia Tann, the woman charged with kidnapping and selling 5,000 children, most of whom were given to the rich and powerful who then colluded with her to “seal” adoptions and cover their nefarious activities (see, for example, Gov. Herbert Lehman, NY, 1935).

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